Council voices concern over police merger
IT
has taken three months for Harrogate Borough Council to hear from the Home Office having voiced concerns about the possible police merger in North Yorkshire to create a 'superforce'.
Despite writing to Home Office Minister, Hazel Blears, in November last year it has taken reminders and eventually a letter to the Home Secretary himself to elicit a response and then, not until the middle of February.
It is not the response the council had been hoping for.
The council has now heard from a civil servant in the Home Office's Direct Communications Unit.
This letter, from an official who didn't give his title, has done nothing to allay those concerns.
Neither did Ms Blears or the Home Secretary respond to the invitation to attend a meeting of all councils in North Yorkshire to hear those concerns in detail.
Councillor Mike Gardner, Leader of the Council, is bitterly disappointed at this lack of response from the Home Office.
He said:
"The whole council is opposed to the plans to merge North Yorkshire Police force into a regional force.
Chief Constables up and down the country confirm what this council believes, that it will be impossible to avoid concentrating the largest share of resources in the more urban areas to the detriment of rural communities.
"It may have taken them three months to reply to us but the government is intent on railroading this merger through.
This is the biggest change to our policing in decades and is a style of policing that hasn't been tried and tested.
But they have not allowed for any meaningful and informed debate on the future of policing in what is England's largest county.
We believe that the government is intent on regionalisation, despite an overwhelming public response in the referendum which told them that there is absolutely no interest in it in this part of the country."
Councillor Gardner has replied to the Home Office to once again make this council's position plain.
He has told the government that such a large force would be too large and too remote; the council does not believe the safeguards that have been described can possibly work given the powers of Chief Constables to use their resources as they so wish.
And he concluded by adding that the council believes that this system will soon be shown to be unworkable and will have to be dismantled.
ENDS
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Councillor Mike Gardner is available for comment on 01423 500600 ext 6299 or via Lynne Mee on 01423 556022.